The Price
by rhododendron
Summary: The Great Escape: Short, unconnected drabbles from the POVs of various characters, at different moments during the movie. R&R, please.
1. Soul Meets Body

**Title**: The Price : Soul Meets Body  
**Rating**: K+ (language & subject)  
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**Disclaimer**: TGE does not belong to me, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Willie hears the soft rumble of soil above him, and he only has time to roll over half-way, eyes squeezed shut, before the noise crescendos and he suddenly can't breathe. It's only for a minute, tops, but the dirt is in his mouth and in his nose and in his skin, and it is the most scared he's ever been in his life. In that minute, struggling weakly to reach air, he understands exactly why Danny wakes up yelling at night, understands why he sleeps with a light on and refuses the bottom bunk. Understands why Roger Bartlett puts his soul into escaping, and why Ives, even now, is in the cooler slowly going wire-happy. Understands it all, and has a long moment to think about how unfair it is that he'll never be able to do anything with it, because he's going to die in this tunnel, buried in Tom, alone and dead under a cabin thousands of miles from home.

Then there's a hand on his leg and it's yanking him backwards into air, god, _air_, and he forces out a word and feels himself moving backwards. He's practically thrown back into light, and looks up to see Danny and Sedge and Roger behind him. Everything is blurry; whether it's because his eyes are watering or because of the dim lights, he doesn't know. There's a hand rubbing at his face, and water pours into his mouth, filling it with mud. Willie chokes and coughs, and makes himself speak to Roger, mostly to just to make sure he can still talk. His voice is strained and weak, and he tries to tell Danny that he's alright, but his chest is still heaving and he's taking in huge gasps of stale tunnel air like it's the best he's ever breathed. Danny's voice is angry and loud next to his ear. Willie allows himself a quick, selfish thought- he knows why Danny entered the war (_Warsaw in flames, everyone gone in one fucking night, _everyone) and why Roger did (_pride duty honor country family_) but _he _wanted to fly. Wanted to throw off gravity for hours at a time and feel the cold numb his bones to needles, jarring through the vibrations of the plane.

It seems as far from the close, hot tunnels as possible, and for the first time in his incarceration he feels like he might not make it out.


	2. Thinnest Silk

**Title**: The Price : Thinnest Silk  
**Rating**: K  
I love reviews.  
**Disclaimer**: TGE does not belong to me, and no copyright infringement is intended.

With his face pressed to the cold glass beside Danny, Willie suddenly realizes how _big _this is. Tonight, in the scarce twelve hours of darkness, they're leaving.

All of them.

As many as can crawl through the negative space he's created underground. They're dispersing, like Ashley-Pitt's sand, to the corners of the globe. Dissolving into a culture that will applaud without comprehension, will cheer without knowing why. It makes his stomach turn, like Hendley and Hilts' moonshine had the day Ives threw himself at the wire and everything changed. Thinking about not waking up in a drafty cabin surrounded by friends is both exhilarating and terrifying; it's all he's known for the three years he's been in the bag and it's hard to imagine anything else. There's a girl, back in London; her picture's in his pocket but he can barely remember her, and doubts that she will care when he returns. There's his family, too, but that is more frightening than comforting. They'll wonder why he's changed so much and try to get him to change back, which is not what he wants. Roger has taught him patience, and Hilts defiance, and Willie doesn't know if anyone else will understand. He likes himself now more than he had when he left; likes the way his smile has changed since he met Danny, and likes the way his laugh is slower to come, but means more when it does.

It's stupid and selfish, but Willie's a little bit afraid of leaving.

Stupid because if he doesn't get out, he'll go mad. Wire-happy. He knows this.

Selfish because there are men who have less to return to than he does. Danny doesn't have a girl- doesn't have a family, doesn't even have a country. Instead, he has nightmares to remind him of everything he's lost.

Willie can't help thinking that in the spotlight from the guard towers, the barbed wires look like beautiful, delicate, nightmarish spiderwebs.


End file.
